


you could say that

by voidlols



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional, Fluff and Humor, M/M, entirely overdramatic bc i'm a drama king, keith doesn't have a filter, keith is from korea but doesn't speak korean, lance is from cuba and speaks fluent spanish, lance is struggling but so is keith, they/them pronouns for Pidge, we've also got tons of sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 14:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11106567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidlols/pseuds/voidlols
Summary: He wonders, vaguely, if Lance is feeling the same way—if he’s feeling like there’s nothing else in the world but the two of them, divulging secrets to each other under the guiding hand of a fucking pdf file designed to make them fall in love.Or, Lance and Keith doDr.
 Aron's love experiment.





	you could say that

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3540143) phanfiction. any uncanny resemblance is entirely unintentional. 
> 
> here's the pdf file: [x](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167297234003)
> 
> i love intense emotions and intense attraction so strap urselves in lads

“That is IT!” Pidge shouts, throwing their laptop down and standing angrily from their spot on the ground. The whole room goes quiet—including, significantly, the two squabbling boys with their fingers pressed into each other’s chests. Pidge whips around to glare at them angrily.

“I can’t fucking work in here with you two _fighting all the damn time!”_ They shout, marching up to Keith and Lance, who quickly step back from each other to gaze in nervous surprise at their friend’s outburst. Pidge isn’t usually _composed,_ sure, but they tend to have a bit more patience than this…

Shiro steps forward, abandoning the Altean military papers he had been sifting through a moment before. “Pidge—“

“Don’t _you_ try and defend them!” Pidge snaps, twisting their head in Shiro’s direction and snarling. Shiro falters for a moment, and Pidge seizes that hesitance to turn back to the object of their fury.

“How am I supposed to reprogram the castle’s sensory motors when I have two _imbeciles_ always _screaming at each other right next to my ear?”_ They hiss, and their eyes are so glittery with fury that Keith decides to keep his mouth shut. Lance, however, doesn’t get the message.

“Um, headphones, maybe? Or earplugs—“ Lance cuts himself off with a yelp as Pidge snaps and advances towards him, stamping down hard on his foot. Lance yanks his leg back and clutches it, hopping in one place and staring in angry disbelief at the green paladin. “What the _fuck,_ dude?”

“Lance!” Shiro barks, because for some reason Pidge is allowed to swear but _god forbid_ any of the others do it in their presence. “Language!”

“Oh come _on—“_

“And Pidge!” Shiro says, turning his piercing gaze in Pidge’s direction. He finally seems to be gaining some control of the situation. “Don’t snap at them like that.”

Pidge stares for a moment before bursting into hysterical laughter. “ _They_ ruin my worktime, and _I’m_ not allowed to yell at them for it?! That’s not fair!”

Keith continues to stay wisely silent, nervously watching the scene play out before him. Yeah, alright, he’d kind of lost control of himself there—Lance would not stop _poking_ him and _touching his hair_ and just generally being a fucking nuisance that he’d eventually taken the bait and…grabbed Lance’s hand and used it to flip him over the couch they’d been sitting on. Not his…finest moment, but Lance had deserved it, and Keith literally hasn’t slept for 20 hours! And it’s not like Lance had taken the opportunity to calm down, no, he’d stood right back up and started yelling about what a violent person Keith was, and Keith couldn’t let _that_ go unchallenged, and it just—it progressed from there. To be completely honest, Keith had entirely forgotten anybody else was in the room except him and Lance. Lance sometimes did that to him.

Shaking his head slightly to ward off the myriad of justifications and defences spilling through his mind, Keith focuses his gaze on Shiro, who is now looking at Keith and Lance as if in deep contemplation.

Not good.

“You’re right, that’s not fair,” Shiro says slowly, folding his arms and continuing to look at Lance and Keith unnervingly. Keith can see Lance shifting uncomfortably out of the corner of his eye, and for once agrees that this _might_ be a situation to be nervous about. That look on Shiro is never good.

Pidge must know that too, Keith realises, because they’re choosing to shut up and let Shiro process. They must know Shiro is planning his own punishment—one that’ll be far worse than something like going to their respective rooms.

Shiro’s punishments always try to _fix_ the problem. _Oh no._

“Alright, I know what’s going to happen,” Shiro finally says. Lance and Keith duck their heads, prepared for the worst. A maniacal grin is already unfurling on Pidge’s mouth.

Shiro crosses the room (all three of the paladins eyes follow him) to the microphone positioned next to the door, meant to broadcast to every room in the castle so that each resident can keep in contact with each other.

Keith and Lance share a confused look as Shiro picks it up and turns it on.

“Hunk?” Shiro says into the microphone. Keith’s confusion increases. “Can you come in here for a second? We’re in the lounge on the second floor.”

Without waiting for a response (though Hunk may not have been able to supply one, as there aren’t other microphones in every room), Shiro sets down the microphone and turns around with folded arms. The room is silent as everybody waits for Hunk to get here, for god knows what reason. Even Lance, who normally never (never, _fucking never_ ) shuts up, is quiet now out of sheer curiosity-mixed-anxiety.

The four of them listen intently as the tell-tale footfalls of Hunk’s large shoes travel towards the door, and a moment later it swings open to reveal the cheerful yellow paladin, clutching a plate of goo-cookies and grinning. His grin falters little more than a second after he enters, though, as the tension in the room catches up to him. He raises the cookies half-heartedly. “I guess nobody wanted my awesome, universe-famous Altean cookies, then?”

Shiro huffs out a breath, stepping towards Hunk decisively. “No, not right now. I was actually wondering if you still had that test you told me about the other day.”

Hunk’s brow knits in confusion for a moment before his expression clears, and the smile is back on his face. “Oh, that weird love-test-thing? Yeah, I’ve got it right here!” Hunk says, pulling out the Altean tablet…thing that Allura had given them all upon arrival. Keith hasn’t really touched his since he came, but he knows Hunk and Pidge have been fascinated by them.

“Love test?” Lance and Pidge say out loud at the same time, and Keith blinks. Oh yeah, he should probably be a bit concerned about that.

“How is that supposed to punish them?” Pidge says indignantly, whilst Lance lets out a mortified, “Not with him!” and gestures towards Keith. Keith finds himself agreeing with Lance for the second time that day.

“All of you, shut up,” Shiro snaps before taking Hunk’s offered tablet. He taps through it and scrolls, reading over something. Keith wishes he could see what was on there…a love test? What did that even mean? Was it some kind of quiz to see how romantic you were? How would that “fix” this thing between him and Lance?

Whatever it is, Shiro seems to like it, because his eyes are twinkling with that dad-mirth that Keith doesn’t like. Gathering his courage, Keith carefully ventures to say something. “Shiro, I’m not sure what you want us to do with a…love test, but I swear this won’t happen again, so—“

“It _will happen again!”_ Pidge cuts him off forcibly, turning their cutting gaze to Keith. Keith returns it with annoyed interest. “Shiro, what are you planning? Is it going to give me my peace back on this castle?”

“It just might,” Shiro replies, turning back to Hunk and gesturing towards the tablet. “Could I borrow this for a few hours? Or, I guess I should say…could Lance and Keith borrow it for a few hours?”

Hunk looks utterly bemused still, but some sort of realisation is slowly dawning on his face. He stares between Lance and Keith for a second, and suddenly claps a hand over his mouth to stifle laughter.

This sends about a million alarm bells blazing off in Keith’s head, and from a quick look to his right, Lance seems to be feeling the same way.

“S-Sure,” Hunk says between laughs, his eyes twinkling traitorously at Lance and Keith. “For as long as you’d—er, they’d—like.”

“Excellent. Thank you,” Shiro says, clutching the tablet more firmly and striding briskly over to Lance and Keith. Pidge sidles closer behind Shiro, trying desperately to catch a look at whatever’s on the screen.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, Shiro,” Lance begins loudly, “but you can’t do any of it without my consent. And I most definitely, 100%, completely do not consent to taking some sort of—some _love test_ with mister Mullet over here.”

“Oooh, making fun of my hair, very original,” Keith drawls before he can help himself, earning a dagger-filled glare from Lance.

A look from Shiro silences them both, along with a sudden gasp from Pidge—who has apparently finally succeeding in reading the tablet screen—followed immediately by loud and not-so-subtle laughter.

“Shiro, this is your best idea yet. Thank you. Oh, man, this is going to be _fun_ to watch,” Pidge says, clasping their hands together evilly. Keith’s alarmness scale raises at _least_ ten more notches because of this, and he suddenly realises that he has to get out very quickly.

“Okay—Shiro—whatever this is, we probably don’t need it, right, Lance?” Keith says quickly, shooting a glare at Lance that quite clearly says _join me if you want to live._ Lance gets it, and nods enthusiastically.

“Y-Yeah, Keith, my buddy, my pal, we can get along perfectly well from now on, ri--?”

“No, you can’t,” Shiro interrupts flatly, turning the tablet so its screen faces the both of them. Despite himself, Keith leans in closer to see it. Lance does too. “But maybe this can change that.”

Keith finds himself face-to-face with a pdf file that has a _lot_ of text on it. Sensibly, he looks to the top in search of a title—all he finds are the words _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,_ which don’t exactly serve to provide clarity. Lance, however, seems to be ahead of him.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, _no,_ ” he says, eyes widening perceptively. Keith, confused, scrambles to read faster. _What the hell are these questions…?_

“Oh, yes, yes, _yes,”_ Pidge responds gleefully. They opens their mouth to say more, and suddenly it clicks within Keith.

“A bonding test!” he and Pidge say simultaneously, with quite different expressions. Keith is horrified. Pidge looks like Christmas has come early.

“Yep,” Shiro says, popping the p. “A series of questions scientifically _designed_ to create bonding and relationships. No team exercise would go as deep as this will.”

“I also heard that it made a bunch of people fall in love with each other so, you know, there’s that,” Hunk chimes in unhelpfully from the doorway, munching on a cookie. Keith and Lance both start and send death glares Hunk’s way, but he only smiles sunnily in response. Bastard.

Shiro clears his throat. “Yes, well, that can happen. But that’s not our purpose with you two.” He shoves the tablet into Keith’s hands (“Hey, why can’t I have it?!” Lance whines) and makes to turn around. “You two are going to get to know each other—really get to know each other. Deeply, and voluntarily. Then, once you understand each other more, maybe you’ll get along.”

“There is _no way—“_

“Why would I want to tell him _anything_ about my—“

“Enough!” Shiro silences their protests with a wave of his hand. He then takes a step backward, ignoring Pidge, who is still flitting about behind him and making evil, smug faces at Lance and Keith. “I’m going to lock you both in here, and you’re going to do that test _exactly_ as it’s written. I’ll know if you don’t.”

He shares a glance with Pidge, and the two quickly step back to the door, which Hunk is holding open. Keith is speechless with anger and shock, holding the tablet loosely in his left hand, but Lance is panicking.

“You can’t—Hunk, buddy, dude, why are you _on their side?!_ ” he cries, looking imploringly at his best friend. Hunk shrugs apologetically.

“You guys need to get along, man. If this test can make two people fall in love, it can _at least_ get you two to share a room without killing each other for once,” Hunk says, and damnit he’s reasonable, but Keith isn’t listening.

“You guys—you can’t be serious—“ he tries in vain, but the three are already out of the room. Shiro is smiling, Pidge is waving at them villainously, and Hunk has an annoyingly smug look on his face. At this moment, Keith hates all of them.

“Good luck!” Shiro says, and just like that, the door is slammed shut and audibly locked.

They’re alone. Lance is the first to speak.

“If they think for _one second_ that I’m actually going to do this, they must’ve breathed one too many toxic fumes from an alien planet!” He says furiously, and it’s quite telling about Keith’s personality when his first response is, automatically, “You can’t _breathe too many times._ They would have to breathe in too _much_ of the toxic fume, not too _many_ of it.”

Lance stares at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re correcting my grammar when we’ve just been locked in this room to take some sort of scientific love test!”

Keith throws his hands up, frustrated, and nearly drops the tablet. “Well, what are we supposed to do!? We don’t have much of a choice, do we?”

“Yeah, we do!” Lance replies, pointing an accusing finger at the tablet. “We just don’t take it and say we did!”

“You heard Shiro,” Keith says miserably, looking down at the dreaded tablet in his hands. “He said he’ll know if we don’t actually do it.”

Lance flails around for a moment, seemingly groping for a tangible answer out of thin air, but he doesn’t find it. Keith is disappointed.

“Fine!” he bursts out after a moment of devastated silence. He plops himself down on the floor, crossing his legs and folding his arms—the universal body language for _I-am-so-not-comfortable-with-opening-up-to-you._ Somehow, Keith thinks that’s a bit counterintuitive with the purpose of the test. He warily joins Lance on the floor anyways, shifting the tablet in his hands.

“Okay, so…” he begins, scrolling through the pdf and speed-reading the instructions. “We just each answer 36 questions about ourselves and then…stare at each other for four minutes, I guess.”

“Wait, we seriously stare at each other for four minutes? Like a staring contest?” Lance asks, momentarily distracted from his annoyance by the strangeness of this test. Keith shakes his head.

“No, you can blink, you just have to…make eye contact for four minutes. It’s supposed to solidify the bond you’ve formed throughout answering the questions, or whatever.”

“That’s stupid,” Lance mumbles, slumping down further and eyeing the tablet warily. Keith decides that the best course of action for the moment is to just shoot right into the first question, so that’s what he does.

“Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” Keith reads aloud. Lance answers almost immediately.

“Beyoncé!” His eyes shine with excitement just at the _mention_ of his “Queen Bey,” and Keith can’t help the exasperated scoff that comes out of him. Of course Lance would choose probably the most well-known popstar on planet Earth—the most unoriginal answer ever. Lance scowls at him, sniffing indignantly.

“Making fun of Beyoncé is definitely not your best option right now,” he says seriously, and Keith rolls his eyes at the threat.

“Like you could fight me and win.”

“Hey—“

Keith decides that they maybe shouldn’t start arguing again, not least because it would mean more time trapped in this room together. So, with the air of superiority of one who believes that they’re being the bigger person, Keith interrupts Lance before he can get properly riled and shares his own answer. “Edward Snowden.”

That does seem to derail Lance from the argument, at least. Lance shuts his mouth, brow creased in confusion, before his eyes widen in realisation. _I’m surprised you even know who that is,_ Keith thinks.

“Snowden? The NSA leaks guy? Why would you want to meet him?” Lance asks, his curiosity—for the moment—diffusing the animosity between them.

Keith shrugs. “He seems interesting. Plus, I want to know how many government secrets he’s been keeping to himself. There’s no way he released _everything_ to the public.”

“What kind of secrets do you think he’s keeping?” If his mind isn’t deceiving him, Keith thinks he can detect a hint of amusement in Lance’s tone. He doesn’t know whether to be offended by that or not.

“Like—the moon landing. That was totally fake,” Keith replies, and is momentarily startled away from his thoughts by the grin that alights Lance’s face. He feels thrown off balance just by the sheer—the sheer _brightness_ of it. It’s one of the only times Lance has smiled at him genuinely, without antagonism, and even if Keith knows he’s being made fun of, he kind of doesn’t mind.

At least until Lance starts talking.

“You’re one of those lunatics who thinks _the moon landing_ was fake?!” he says, pointing at Keith with the air of one in great shock. His expression is suffused with mirth, and Keith straightens up, now full of indignation.

“There’s no _way_ we had that technology in the ‘60s!” he defends himself hotly. Lance has started laughing by now. “We didn’t—listen to me!—we didn’t have that shit until at _least_ the ‘80s, but since the Cold War was being really intense in the ‘60s, we needed something to make everybody think America was winning. What better than a moon landing? So they manufactured it and— _stop laughing at me, you asshole!”_

Lance’s laughter had grown louder and louder throughout Keith’s explanation, and Keith is 90% certain that he doesn’t actually find it that funny and is laughing just to annoy him. He doesn’t have time for this.

“Ok _fine,_ whatever, don’t believe me!” he snarls, jerking the tablet towards his face again and reading out the next question furiously. “Would you like to be famous? In what way?”

Lance calms down, wiping laugh-tears from his cheeks. Keith keeps his eyes resolutely on the tablet screen, not trusting himself not to blow up if he looks up and sees that cheeky expression on Lance’s face. _Annoying._

“Of course I want to be famous. I guess—I guess now, in the face of, you know, trying to save the universe and all that, I’d like to be famous for that. For succeeding in doing that. Because that’s kind of the most important goal anyone could have,” Lance says after a moment. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful answer, one Keith hadn’t been expecting. He’d expected Lance to say something stupid, like following in the footsteps of Beyoncé, or something.

Keith nods. He forgets that Lance had been laughing at him not two minutes ago. “I don’t think I want to be famous,” he muses out loud. Lance, for some reason, looks surprised. Keith suddenly finds himself defensive. “I mean—of course I want to save the universe, but I don’t really care about being _known_ for that. I don’t do well with…attention.”

Lance is staring at him now, expression completely wiped of emotion. Keith finds himself increasingly uncomfortable, squirming slightly in place. _What is he thinking?_

“You were literally top of the class at the Garrison,” Lance finally says, and Keith is so relieved that he’s finally being spoken to instead of stared at that he forgets he doesn’t like talking about that particular aspect of his life.

”Yeah, I was. But that wasn’t because I wanted, like— _popularity_ or anything. I didn’t even try to be at the top, I just…was.”

A shadow crosses over Lance’s face at Keith’s last words, and Keith is reminded all at once that Lance, for whatever reason, had seemed to think they were rivals at the Garrison. Saying that he hadn’t even _tried_ and still ended up better than Lance was…probably not the best thing he could’ve told him.

Keith may find Lance to be an annoying nuisance, but he doesn’t want to make him _actually_ , personally feel bad. He opens his mouth to try to amend, but he’s not even quite sure what he’s going to say. “I, I mean, I didn’t—“

“Next question,” Lance cuts him off forcibly. Keith’s mouth snaps shut in the face of Lance’s momentarily stony expression, and this time he decides to do what he’s told.

“Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?”

“What—no, I don’t. Do people do that?”

“I do that,” Keith mumbles quietly, slightly embarrassed. He hates being reminded of how bad he is at social interaction.

Lance looks incredulous. “Why?”

Keith shrugs—or, half-shrugs, considering he’s hunched in on himself considerably at this point. “Helps me to not make an idiot out of myself.”

Keith waits for the inevitable sarcastic comment about how inept he is socially, but it doesn’t come. Not confident enough to chance a glance at Lance, he hurriedly moves on to the next question. “What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?”

“Being back on Earth,” Lance replies almost immediately, smiling ruefully once he realises what he’s said. “Being back with my family. Just—just being able to be with them, back home, maybe cooking with my mom. She made the best fried plantains.”

Keith allows Lance a moment of silence, knowing that he’s just shared something genuinely personal. It’s strange, the fact that Lance, for some reason, has decided to take this seriously. Keith knows that Lance is the most homesick of all of them—he actually had a lot to lose, a lot to sacrifice by coming here. Keith, in comparison, had nothing to lose and everything to gain by signing on to Voltron. He knows that he’ll never be able to understand the choice Lance made, or how it had affected him. He doesn’t try to form a response, and Lance doesn’t seem to require one.

“I guess—I guess being here, on the castle, without having to be worried about an attack,” Keith begins, deciding to be truthful like Lance. “Being able to do my own thing, but knowing that everybody else is just a comm link away, and I can talk to them if I want, and they’re…safe.”

“Does that include me?” Lance asks wryly. Keith is taken aback by the question, and its tone.

“Yes.”

Lance blinks, looking genuinely surprised by Keith’s answer. But then he smiles—it’s muted, but real, and this time Keith doesn’t feel like he’s being made fun of. He stops breathing for a moment.

“Cool.”

Keith can literally _feel_ the heat spreading on his cheeks, and quickly turns his attention back to the tablet instead of Lance’s freckled, endearing smile.

“When did you last sing to yourself? Someone else?”

 “This morning, I sang in the shower,” Lance replies promptly. “And then ten minutes after I got out I serenaded Hunk with a beautiful rendition of Nicki Minaji’s _Starships._ ”

“I bet Hunk _loved_ that,” Keith says, but he’s smiling. It’s a small smile, but Keith couldn’t hold it back—the image of Lance forcefully screaming “ _Starships were meant to flyyYYYYY!”_ at a haggard Hunk is just too priceless.

“He did, for your information! I have an _amazing_ voice. I was in choir for six years before I joined the Garrison.”

“Oooh, you’ll make Broadway yet.”

“Shut up,” Lance laughs, swatting uselessly in Keith’s direction. Keith is taken aback by the sudden swing towards companionability, but he likes it too much to question it. He continues smiling absently as a he ponders his own answer, not noticing that the other boy’s eyes are resting sweetly on his quirked lips.

Some of the negative tension that has been in the room since this _thing_ began dissolves.

“I hum to myself a lot,” Keith finally admits, shrugging, “but I don’t usually actually, you know, say the lyrics. It just feels kind of pathetic to sing when you’re—well, alone in the desert.” Keith smiles, a trace of bitterness flowing into his expression. “It’s also hard to sing to someone else when you’re alone in the desert.”

“You can sing to us, now,” Lance supplies eagerly, physically perking up at the notion of hearing Keith sing. “Or _me,_ right now! Come on! I _know_ you know Nicki Minaj’s verse in _Monster,_ I’ve heard you humming it, rap it for me!”

“That’s not _singing_!”

“Close enough!”

Keith groans, shaking his head and ignoring the way Lance deflates. “I’m not rapping a Nicki Minaj verse for you. We have questions to answer.”

Lance huffs, leaning back against the couch and surveying Keith with mock-disappointment. It’s actually a really good impression of Shiro. “Fine. But I’ll get it out of you yet.”

Rolling his eyes, Keith consults the tablet for the next question. “If you were able to live until the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?” Keith looks up from the tablet. “Wow. Okay.”

“Geez, that’s kind of deep,” Lance says, and Keith can see the sudden nervousness in his expression. Keith can understand the feeling—the questions had been pretty mild so far, but if they start getting more and more introspective, Keith doesn’t know if he’ll be able to pull off convincing cop-outs. Or lies. He’s not sure if he wants to lie to Lance, either.

“I think—I think the body,” Lance says after a moment of deliberation. Keith makes a _tch_ noise.

“Shallow.”

“It’s not for shallow reasons!” Lance defends righteously. “I want my mind to be able to grow—you know, not be stuck at one age for the rest of my life. I want to be able to get all wise and experienced and shit. And if I get to keep my super-hot young body while that happens, then it sounds pretty good to me.”

“Huh.” Keith hadn’t considered that angle before. When he’d read the question, he’d automatically answered it for himself— _mind, duh_ —without thinking about the possible benefits of growing older.

He won’t admit it out loud, but he’s kind of impressed by Lance, if only because he’d considered something Keith hadn’t. “I think I’ll go with mind. Young minds can process faster, have faster reflexes. I can keep a healthy enough body if I just exercise into old age.”

Lance nods, and Keith moves on. “Do you have a secret hunch of how you will die?”

They’re both silent after reading this question, as they’re each forcibly reminded of the place they’re sitting, the situation they’re in. The lounge suddenly seems overly spacious, wide enough to get lost in, and the darkness of space presses in on them both just outside of the windows. Keith smiles ironically, and finds his expression reflected back to him by Lance. “I think we both have the same answer to that, and it’s not exactly a secret.”

Lance grins, and all of a sudden Keith sees in his eyes explosions, and the firing of science-fiction-like guns, and the evil, mechanical, _terrifying_ laugh of Zarkon. His hands twitch. He wants to touch Lance.

“Yeah, I think we do. Next.”

Mentally reprimanding himself, Keith drops his gaze back to the tablet. He reads, “Name 3 things you and your partner appear to have in common.”

Keith has a feeling that five minutes ago, both of them would’ve laughed at this question and answered something silly, like, “We both have eyes, hair, and a nose,” but the room feels heavier now, especially after that last question. Keith watches, magnetically, as Lance licks his lips.

“We both…we’re both like, really conscious of our mortality,” Lance tries first, very quietly. Keith swallows, unsure of why this is _affecting him so much holy shit_. He nods slowly.

It’s his turn now.

“We’re both—we’re paladins. Part of a specifically chosen group of people to save everything. We’re both…special, I guess, in that way. Drawn together inevitably, or…whatever.”

Lance agrees. He licks his lips again, and Keith wishes he would stop.

“We’re both starting to feel extremely. Uh. _Weird,_ right now,” Lance says, and Keith huffs out a laugh in spite of himself. _Weird._ Yeah, he supposes.

Lance’s semi-joke has diffused the heat in the room somewhat, but Keith has a feeling it’s all going to be downhill from here as a he reads off the next question. The tide has turned into truly _introspective_ territory. “For what in your life do you feel most grateful?”

“This is way more emotional than I thought it would be, just for the record,” Lance remarks loudly, picking at the cuticles on his fingers. Keith makes a noncommittal sound, waiting for Lance’s answer.

Lance exhales loudly before beginning, “I guess—my family. And my friends. I wouldn’t have said my family a few years ago, but being away from them has kind of reminded me how much I love them. And my friends—Hunk, and Pidge, and all the others from when I was young, and everyone else here now—they’ve helped me more than I can say. So, I’m. I’m most grateful for them, I guess.”

“That’s a really selfless answer for someone who never seems to stop talking about how great _they_ are,” Keith replies without thinking, and immediately regrets speaking even though there wasn’t any animosity in his voice. _I hope I didn’t offend him, shit._

Why is he suddenly worried about offending _Lance_?

Lance, however, simply shrugs. “You’d, uh…you’d be surprised,” is all he offers in return, leaving Keith mystified.

It takes Keith a couple more seconds to realise that Lance is waiting for his answer. He coughs purposefully before starting. “Um, my answer is sort of the same. I’m most grateful for…finding you guys, or for you guys finding me, or however that worked out. Because even though I know I’m travelling towards almost certain death by sticking with you all, at least I’ll be able to die knowing that I…formed _some_ sort of relationship with other people. At least temporarily.”

“Dude, that’s morbid,” Lance says, and he’s staring at Keith again like he’s never seen him before. Keith, irritated now for some reason, shrugs and looks back at the tablet. “It’s how I feel.”

Lance shifts slightly in his place, moving almost imperceptibly closer to Keith, who legitimately wouldn’t have noticed had he been focusing on anything else but _Lance Lance Lance._ Keith’s eyes dart towards Lance for a millisecond, but he quickly fixes them back on the screen.

“If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”

 _Oh, fuck,_ Keith thinks as soon as he reads off the question, groaning internally. He’s going to be absolutely _fucked_ regarding any questions about family; his history is so pitiful. It’s nearly the opposite of Lance’s, and both of them are keenly aware of that. He can feel it in the atmospheric change in the room—well, it’s not really a _change,_ per se, but more of a strengthening of the weight already there, pressing them both down.

He waits, somewhat apprehensively, for Lance to answer. Lance seems to be mulling it over quite a lot.

“I think—and this is going to sound incredibly cliché, coming from someone with a big family—I think I’d just like to be given more…attention, from mom and dad. They always either had kids older than me or younger than me that they had to focus on, and I was just. Left to fend for myself a lot.” He takes a deep breath, exhales. “I think that’s partially why I’m so…obnoxious and loud now. It’s what got me the attention back then.”

He suddenly laughs then, and Keith is startled enough to jump slightly because of it. “Wow, my issues are the textbook definition for someone from a big family, aren’t I?” he says, and there’s a self-deprecating darkness on his face, one that Keith doesn’t like. Lance and self-deprecation aren’t supposed to go together.

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it less valid,” Keith tells him seriously.

Lance shrugs, the picture of purposeful avoidance. “Your turn,” he says.

Keith briefly considers pushing the subject more—Lance seems unhappy, and aren’t you supposed to talk it out with someone who’s unhappy?—but decides not to press his luck. He doesn’t want to ruin the strange truce they have going right now.

“Well, I’d definitely take a rain check on all the orphanages,” he partially jokes, trying to lighten the mood, but Lance doesn’t seem to find it funny. Keith doesn’t understand his expression—it’s not pity, really, more…anger. What does Lance have to be angry about? “And just generally less…change. I’d change the amount of change. Sometimes all I wanted was some stability.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance murmurs. He makes an aborted movement with his hand—like he’s going to _touch_ Keith, oh god—but stops, lifting it to brush aside some of his hair instead. Trying to play it off. Keith thinks, for about two seconds, _I wish he hadn’t._

“Take 4 minutes to tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.” Keith looks up from the tablet, sighing. “Do we really have to do this? We know enough about that from the mind-meld.”

“I’m cool with skipping it if you are,” Lance shrugs. Keith nods, and promptly skips it.

“Next question. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?”

“The ability to kill Zarkon just by thinking about it,” Lance says matter-of-factly, earning himself a snicker from Keith.

“Honestly, I think that’s pretty much what I’d say too,” he agrees. A lot of his problems would be solved if that was possible.

Keith looks back down at the tablet and raises his eyebrows. “Oh, we’re apparently on ‘Set 2’ now.” He considers for a moment, before holding out the tablet to Lance. “Do you want to read these?”

Lance takes the offered tablet and zooms in on the questions curiously. “I didn’t know there were different sets—there’s 3, apparently. Wow. This is like, an actual thing.”

“Yeah, it’s a real psychological test they did. Not just some Buzzfeed quiz.”

Lance quirks an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know you knew what Buzzfeed quizzes were.”

“I lived in the desert, not under a rock, Lance.”

“Fair enough.” Lance looks at the screen, silently reading the question to himself before puffing out a slightly wary laugh. “Oh my god—If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you like to know?”

“Wow, okay.” Keith raises his eyes to the heavens, asking god why he’s being forced to divulge such personal details about himself to _Lance_ of all people. “Did we seriously go from ‘who would you want as a dinner guest’ to _this_?”

“I know, right? It’s like they’re slowly preparing us for something.”

 _Yeah, they’re trying to make us fall in love,_ Keith thinks, but he doesn’t dare bring up the test’s real purpose. The knowledge is there for them both, an undercurrent to the weight in the room. Keith didn’t really believe it at first, but now…

“I think—god, I’m not usually this introspective.” Keith rakes a hand frustratedly through his hair, thinking. “I guess I’d want to know if we…win. If we actually defeat Zarkon and, you know, save the fucking universe. If all this—if all _I’ve_ done is worth anything.”

“Would you stay here if you knew we were going to lose?” Lance asks. His tone is carefully controlled, but Keith can see a simmering _something_ just beneath the surface. He’s almost afraid to know what it is.

The question itself is difficult, but Keith would rather focus on that than how Lance is acting at the moment. Keith tries the knowledge on for size—tries to act like he knows that, yeah, this is all for nothing, they’ll all perish, and the entire universe will soon come under the Galra control. He tries it on for size, looks in the mirror for several minutes, and he still can’t decide.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. Lance nods. Impassive.

“I’d like to know—what I want. A lot of the time I feel like I’m just kind of…drifting, like, aimlessly. I have a purpose, and of course I _want_ to defeat Zarkon, but—beyond that, I don’t really know what I want. It would just be nice to know.”

 _God._ Keith’s brain is whirling. There’s something interesting— _obsessively_ interesting—about being this emotionally intimate with a person in so little time, so soon after fighting with them. It’s addictive. Keith is latching on to Lance’s every vulnerability, filing it away in his mind like a well-kept secret. He wonders, vaguely, if Lance is feeling the same way—if he’s feeling like there’s nothing else in the world but the two of them, divulging secrets to each other under the guiding hand of a fucking pdf file designed to make them fall in love.

But maybe this is just Keith, and the fact that he’s never had the chance to show this much of himself to a person before. He considers the fact that he’d opened up almost disturbingly easily, but quickly banishes the thought from his mind on the grounds that—well, Lance had too.

Was that normal? Keith isn’t sure, but he has no more time to ponder, because Lance is already reading out the next question.

“Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”

Keith sucks in a breath. “I’ve wanted to—I’ve wanted to go to Korea for a while. Obviously I haven’t yet because money. But my biological parents—or at least, one of them—are from there. I guess it’s just kind of a pilgrimage to see what I’ve…missed, in terms of my heritage.”

“You’re Korean? I didn’t….know that.”

Keith smiles. “Me neither, for a good portion of my life. But, I mean—my last name is ‘Kogane,’ so.”

“Ko-ga-ne,” Lance says, stretching each syllable out deliciously. Keith realises abruptly that he _really_ likes Lance saying his last name. “Yeah, that’s pretty Asian.”

“Shut up. What about you? You have to answer too.”

“Hmmmm.” Lance rests a hand on his chin, exaggeratedly stroking a pretend beard. “I’d like to fuck a guy.”

Keith chokes on his spit. Like, straight up fucking _chokes on his own saliva._ Lance bursts out into laughter, but Keith thinks— _thinks,_ and he’s not sure how accurate he’s being since he’s hearing Lance over his own fucking coughing—that the laugh is about three octaves higher than normal, and has an embarrassed, nervous lilt to it.

Keith recovers, eyes wide, and stares at Lance. The first thing that jumps to his tongue is, “You haven’t fucked a guy? _Ever?_ You’re like—the loudest bisexual I know!”

Lance’s smile takes on a frosty edge, and Keith recognises too late that that might’ve been an offensive comment.

“I can be bisexual without having had any _experience,_ thanks,” Lance says, his voice cutting and clear. Keith swallows. “I haven’t been able to because there weren’t too many willing guys back in Florida—my town was small, and kind of conservative—and most of the people at the Garrison were nerds who didn’t care about sex.”

“Okay,” Keith says lamely. His brain is busy processing this—well, it’s not really a _revelation,_ Keith knew that Lance liked guys as well, but he’d always thought that Lance would be the one, out of them both, with the most experience. But he’d never had sex with a boy. And it was, apparently, something he’d always dreamed of doing.

 _For fuck’s sake,_ Keith thinks, and even the voice in his head sounds hoarse. Now that Lance has brought _that_ subject up, Keith’s going to be thinking about it. And when he looks at Lance again, he finds dark eyes staring back at him, travelling up and down his body before landing back on his face—on his lips. Lance catches Keith looking, starts a little, and then looks back at the tablet.

 _What the fuck was_ that?

Keith doesn’t know if he can take much more of this.

“What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?” Immediately after reading it, Lance rolls his eyes and spreads his arms out, gesturing to their surroundings. “I think, again, we both have the same answer to that.”

Keith quirks his lips in a small smile, nodding once more. “We have more in common than I thought.”

“Alright, next one. What do you value most in a friendship?”

“These questions are rigged against me,” Keith insists, shaking his head as his friendless life flashes before him. He takes a deep breath, unsure if he’s ready to be truly honest about this. “Um. I guess just, just being there. Being willing to stay even when I don’t want to talk to them, or we’re fighting. Just someone who’s—constant. That I trust. I guess that’s what I value.”

Keith has resolutely avoided looking at Lance throughout his mini-spiel, but he chances a glance now. Lance is looking back, expression morphed into something dazed. He blinks once, twice, and shakes himself a little. Keith tilts his head in bemusement.

“Well, I hope you have that now,” Lance says, much to Keith’s surprise. Keith clears his throat a little to hide the sudden affection that swirls to the forefront of his mind.

“Yeah I—I think I do.”

“For me…Someone that meshes with my sense of humour. Someone who’s willing to listen to me and put up with how—with how annoying I can be sometimes.” Lance’s eyes drop to the ground. “Someone who actually knows about my problems and can try to help me through them. I’d do the same with them. Just—“ His expression is rueful. Sardonic. “Someone who cares, I guess. I value true, mutual-caring.”

 _This wasn’t in the job description,_ Keith thinks stupidly, feeling the renewed pounding of his heart. This room is too large, too quiet, the vast expanse of space lurking just outside is too dark. Keith feels crowded in next to Lance even though he has ample space to move away.

Lance moves on. “What is your most treasured memory?”

For once, Keith has an exact answer for this one. “Finding the Blue Lion. My life kind of sucked before that. But that moment, when I realised I’d been right the whole time and—and I was surrounded by people, for once—that made me…happy. I guess I felt validated for one of the first times in my life.”

“I can understand that,” Lance says simply. “I think mine would be…one time my family and I went on vacation in Cuba, and we were laying on the beach at night and looking at the stars, and I turned and told my mom, ‘I wonder if I could be up there someday.’ And she said, ‘ _volaste por muchos a_ _ñ_ _os.’”_

Keith’s breath catches at the sound of Lance speaking Spanish. _Shit, that’s hot._ He’s almost so distracted that he doesn’t hear Lance’s translation.

“’You’ve been flying for years.’” A far-away smile graces Lance’s features, and he looks soft and glowing, even in this artificial space-light. Keith feels a pang in his chest. “Being a sentimental idiot, that kind of stuck with me for whatever reason. But yeah.”

Swallowing thickly, Keith nods, unsure of what to say. This feels like a part of Lance he shouldn’t touch—that he’s not allowed into yet, though now he may have a foot in the door. But Keith doesn’t trust himself not to accidentally say something insensitive, and he cares about this too much— _he fucking cares about this oh god—_ to risk fucking it up. He stays silent.

“What is your most terrible memory? Wow, shit.”

Keith feels his heartbeat spike momentarily before he’s able to properly wrangle his emotions. This isn’t so bad—he’s told enough already, and Lance is fully aware of his sad backstory given the mind-meld they’d been forced to do before. But telling him, actually voicing a part of it out loud, is different.

“Um. Well.” Keith coughs, tries to clear his head. “One of my foster families—when I was seven or something—they weren’t very…nice,” he says lamely. “They’d—well, they’d hit me some, and yell at me for no reason. One time they both came home, drunk, and wouldn’t stop banging on the furniture and throwing shit and it was just this huge cacophony of noise and as a seven-year-old who had no control over anything it was—“ Keith shuts his eyes for a moment, imagines the memory washing over him like water and swirling down the drain. He exhales deeply. “Scary.”

“That is fucking awful, Keith,” Lance says, and Keith opens his eyes to see a concerned face swimming in front of him. He shrugs in pretend nonchalance.

“It was ten years ago. I’m mostly over it.”

Lance looks at him, eyes searching, and for once Keith lets his expression become entirely open, because he really _is_ over it, even if that doesn’t make it any less of an awful memory. Lance appears mostly satisfied with what he finds, because his gaze becomes less intense, and he starts on his own answer.

“Um, fighting Zarkon that one time. When I—you know, when I lost consciousness. ‘Bonding moment’ and all that,” Lance says, offering a short laugh. Keith frowns. “That was the closest I’d ever come to dying, so it’s earned a first-place rank in the list of things-I’d-rather-not-repeat-thank-you-very-much.”

“I didn’t know it scared you that badly. You didn’t look scared,” Keith says in a small voice, wondering how he—or any of them—had missed this.

Lance shrugs. “I’m good at hiding my feelings. One of my many talents.”

And for the first time, Keith doesn’t buy into Lance’s false bravado at all.

“If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?”

Keith is taken aback. “Okay, um. I don’t…think so? I have to fight Zarkon either way, and the chances of me dying _tomorrow_ are high in themselves. So. I don’t think I would.” Keith scratches his arm absently, lowering his eyes. “Might act a bit differently, actually. Be a bit more open.”

Lance is quiet after Keith’s declaration, but Keith can feel his eyes on him. He sucks in a breath, doesn’t raise his head.

“I’d try to be bolder,” Lance says, and Keith can _still feel those blue fucking eyes on him holy shit._ “Braver. Not be so scared to do…things.”

“That’s cryptic, Lance,” Keith says, and if he sputters a bit, neither of them comment on it.

Moving on.

“What does friendship mean to you?”

“Again with the friendship? God, fine. It means someone who’s willing to put up with you, and who you’re willing to put up with in turn. Means accepting someone, flaws in all, and wanting to be around them anyways. Means wanting to know them and stay with them. And caring,” Keith adds as an afterthought, catching Lance’s eye and remembering his answer for the value question.

Lance breaths out softly. “Shit, yeah, there’s that. With the added bonus of feeling validated.” He consults the tablet once more. “What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

“Limited ones,” Keith says without thinking, but the dry humour makes Lance snort humorously for some reason. Keith is relieved—he was afraid it would inspire pity.

“Love and affection to me are like water is to trees,” Lance declares, flashing a smile in Keith’s direction. “If I don’t give or receive enough of them, I’ll probably die.”

“Wow, being stuck in space with only five other people must be torture for you.”

“I manage. I’ve got lots built up from my sunny and sweet childhood, unlike you, Mr. I’m-dark-and-moody-don’t-touch-me.”

“Touché,” Keith concedes, rolling his eyes. “Go on.”

“Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic about your partner. Share a total of five items.”

“I don’t know if I can find that many to list,” Keith says, but his tone is light, and it’s more like harmless banter than it ever has been. Lance throws a pillow at him, which Keith swats away effortlessly. “I still have better reflexes than you, genius.”

Lance scoffs. “Ok, number 1—no you don’t. Number 2, you have to start this because I read the question.” He leans back, settling his arms behind his head and nodding at Keith. “Go on, tell me how utterly amazing I am at everything.”

“And by ‘everything,’ do you mean avoiding your actual duties to flirt with alien girls who’d never want you anyways?” Keith offers innocently, grinning when Lance throws him a glare. “Because you’re pretty amazing at that.”

“Pretty sure that’s not a compliment,” Lance sighs, letting his arms fall back into his lap. He surveys Keith disdainfully. “Fine, if you’re not going to do anything but _insult_ me, I’ll start.”

He clears his throat.

“You’re like, insanely pretty. Too pretty for such a bad personality.”

Keith opens his mouth to retort before the words really sink in. Lance just called him—Lance just called him _pretty._ Right to his face! Speaking of his face, Keith can feel it heating up at this very moment. He must look as red as his lion.

Keith is seized with the irrational urge to _out-compliment_ Lance. Which makes no sense at all, but _whatever._

“You—You look really cool when you shoot that gun.”

“You’re cute when you smile.”

Keith gasps.

“Your personality is bright and endearing, not annoying. Even when you’re being annoying.”

 _Lance_ gasps. Keith feels mollified.

“Your dry sense of humour.”

“Your genuine one.”

“How passionate you are about this, this space mission we’re supposed to be doing.”

“How you try to give everyone a break from the seriousness sometimes.”

“The fact that even though you act cold and distant on the outside, you really care a lot about all of us.”

“The fact that you _show_ that you care.”

There’s silence after Keith speaks, as they both suddenly become aware of all they’ve said to each other. Keith can see the red dusting Lance’s brown cheeks, and he wants to add, “How cute you look when you blush,” to the list of positive compliments.

“I—I, um, I think that’s five,” Lance says, coughing loudly into his fist. Keith leans back warily. He can feel his head spinning, his heartbeat accelerating. He’s suddenly all too aware that he hasn’t actually slept in about, oh, 20 fucking hours, and it’s probably not the _best_ idea to be wandering into this territory when he’s slightly sleep-deprived. Fuck.

“How close and warm was your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?”

“Are you fucking serious,” Keith deadpans, and Lance breaks into hysterical laughter that reminds Keith that Lance, too, is running on less than five hours of sleep. Great.

“Okay, I think we can skip this one. I’ve already told you about my family, you’ve already told me about yours. Oh,” Lance adds when he glances down at the next question. “The next one’s about your relationship with your mother.” He looks back up at Keith, who is raising his eyes exasperatedly to the sky. “We can skip that one too. But, for the record, my mom is awesome.”

“Noted.”

“And—wait, that was also it for set two.” Lance looks up at Keith, catching his eyes and holding him there for a moment. Keith blinks and looks away. “Your turn.”

Their hands brush slightly as Keith takes the tablet offered to him, and he’s becoming less and less sure about this whole process the longer it goes on. Set three. They’re almost done, just about ten more questions. _I can survive this._

“Question 25: Make three true ‘we’ statements each. For example, ‘We are both in this room feeling…’”

“We’re both not straight,” Lance says, as if on cue, and Keith doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. _Thanks for drawing that out into the open, Lance._

“We both didn’t get enough sleep last night,” Keith says pointedly. Lance smiles at him. It’s crooked.

“We’re both dreading the ending questions of this.”

“Hah. Too true. We’re both—we’re both pissed off at Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk for forcing us to do this.”

“We both thought that this test wasn’t going to work.”

Keith stops breathing. Lance is staring at him intently, too intently, and it requires every ounce of mental strength Keith has to not look away.

“We both don’t know what’s going to happen after this is done.”

Before Lance can comment on that, Keith is frantically searching out the next question. “Complete this sentence: I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

“My fucking thoughts right now, because maybe they’d be able to make sense of them for me,” Lance says, and the real frustration is evident in his voice. This is one of the only times Keith has seen Lance’s swaggering façade crack to reveal confusion and seriousness. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

“Ditto,” he replies lamely. It’s a cop-out, but at least it’s a true one. “If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know.”

“That I actually hate myself a lot.”

Keith is startled out of his anxious state for a moment, jerking his head up to regard Lance with wide eyes. “What? Why?”

Lance shrugs. He seems casual, detached almost. The grin he offers is hollow at best, outright fake at worst. “Why not? You’ve met me.”

“Lance—“

“Keeeith, it’s your turn to answer now,” Lance whines, and Keith’s mouth snaps shut. Lance doesn’t want to talk about it right now, no matter how much Keith wants to tell him that he’s—well, one of the best people Keith’s ever met. But he’s not going to push. Not when everything around them seems so precarious.

“I’m not good at interacting, so—sometimes talking to me will be hard. Keeping up the friendship might be hard, because I’m just like that.”

“I think you’re the only one who thinks that, Keith.”

Keith swallows. Lance’s eyes stray from his mouth to his throat, watching the movement. Keith is duly fucked.

“Tell your partner what you like about them, being very honest this time, saying something you might not say to someone you’ve just met.”

“I love your eyes,” Lance breathes, and the first utterly _stupid_ thought that comes to Keith is, _What do my eyes look like?_ He mentally shakes himself—well, _punches_ himself might be the better word—and dares to meet Lance’s gaze.

“I like it when you speak Spanish.”

Lance laughs hoarsely. “ _Dios, esto me está matando.”_

Keith’s mouth goes dry, and he licks his lips involuntarily. Lance (fucking _again,_ Jesus Christ, Keith wishes he would stop) follows the movement of his tongue.

“Twenty…Twenty-nine. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.”

“One time my mom walked in on me making out with a girl. I had my hand halfway up her shirt, and she had just taken my belt off,” Lance says, not breaking eye contact with Keith. Keith begins chanting _don’timaginedon’timaginedon’timagine_ to himself.

“When I was around eight, I went up and asked a boy if he would go out with me, and he poured his milk on me,” Keith says, and he doesn’t have time to wonder why they’re both selectively choosing experiences that have to do with trying to romance other people. “When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?”

“In front of someone? Yesterday. I cried in front of Hunk because he dropped a plate on my foot.” Lance throws a smile in Keith’s direction, and the heated tension diffuses somewhat. For now. “By myself…last Saturday, probably.”

Keith frowns, concerned. “How come?”

“I don’t remember.”

Keith nods slowly. “The last time I cried in front of someone was…my third foster family, I think, because I didn’t want to go to them. After that I learned not to make a fuss.” He shifts, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve cried by myself since middle school. I usually don’t let my emotions out like that.”

“Sounds hard.”

Keith gives a noncommittal jerk. “Thirty one. Tell your partner something you like about them already.”

“Didn’t we just answer this question?” Lance asks, chuckling nervously. “Fucking repetitive, this thing.”

“Yeah, let’s just—let’s just skip it,” Keith says, eyes hurriedly flitting to the next question. “Thirty two. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?”

“Feelings.”

Keith’s heart is hammering in his chest. “Friendship. Thirty…three. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?”

Lance’s eyes are darting back and forth around the room. His leg is jiggling, incessantly, and he’s picking at his fingers. He’s beyond nervous, of course, and Keith watches, mildly fascinated, memorising every movement of Lance’s body.

“I’d regret not telling my family that I’m actually okay,” Lance says after a moment. His voice is pitched low. “But, obviously, I can’t do that because—hello, space. And I guess if I was dying in the evening, it’d be pointless telling them I’m okay, but. Yeah.”

“I’d regret not telling you exactly what I’m feeling right now,” Keith says before he can stop himself.

Lance freezes. “Keith,” he says.

Keith is already moving on, desperately. “Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash and save any one item. What would it be? Why?”

Lance is blinking far more often than he should be. He’s back to picking at and wringing his hands. His long limbs are crowded together, he’s hunched in out of nervousness this time, not from being closed off. Keith glances down and finds that he’s unconsciously mirrored Lance’s image. Shit.

“My—My phone. It has all my pictures on it, and video, and it’s a way to contact people, and—yeah. My phone.”

“I’d save my space photo album. I worked fucking hard on that.”

Lance laughs. It’s more nervous than the last time.

“Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing?”

“ _Disturbing?_ Um, my dad, I guess. Just because I grew up and he was, like, the pinnacle of male perfection. It was like nobody could touch him, and he could beat up anybody he wanted to.”

Keith makes a split-second decision and plows forward. “P-Pidge. Because they’re younger than me, and someone younger than you isn’t supposed to die before you.”

Lance’s eyes have widened at the implications, and Keith can see the overwhelming _emotion_ spelled out so clearly on his face that it might as well have been written out in a book. Keith thinks he might’ve sounded choked up whilst talking, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on that. They’re at the last question.

“Thirty six. This is the last one.”

“Jesus,” Lance says. “Time flies.”

“Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how they would handle it. Also, ask them to reflect back to you how they seem to be feeling about the problem they have chosen.” 

“Fuck,” Lance says simply. Keith looks up at him helplessly, afraid but also rather exhilarated about what he’s going to say next. 

“God, Keith, you _know_ what my problem is right now,” Lance suddenly bursts out, clutching his head in frustration. “This fucking—this stupid _test_ is a problem, you’re a problem, and on top of that I’m almost _painfully_ turned on right now which is _a really big problem_.” Lance is babbling, and Keith is letting it all wash over him like a waterfall of words. He feels weak, and he’s pretty sure his hands are shaking where they clutch the tablet. 

Keith desperately tries to remember what he’s supposed to be doing in response to Lance’s declaration, but he’s forgotten the question entirely. He’s forgotten everything except the boy in front of him, who is staring at his lap and trembling, just a little. 

“Lance…” Keith says slowly, cautiously, and Lance’s head snaps up so fast Keith gets whiplash from watching it. 

“Keith, my god— _no digas mi nombre así_ , fuck."

Keith has no idea what that means, but the way Lance says it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 

“Do you—“ Keith’s voice comes out as a croak; he swallows and tries again. “Do you want to move on to the next part?” 

“Yes,” Lance says immediately. 

Keith quickly scrolls back to the first page to read the instructions again, despite the fact that his head is filled with white noise. He’s never done this before, he’s never been emotional like this, this is—this is worse than the mind-meld, because he knows it’s voluntary, and he knows he’s actually _said_ everything. It’s mortifying and intoxicating at the same time. 

“Okay,” Keith begins, closing out of the pdf file and opening up the only Earth-like timer present on the castle. “Apparently, this staring-thing is very important. Like, the most important part of the experiment.” Keith quickly scrolls through the various options, setting the timer for four minutes. He looks up at Lance, beating his nerves back. “Are you ready?” 

“Yeah, just—just, hold on,” Lance says distractedly, shuffling closer to Keith and repositioning himself. He sits criss-cross, facing Keith square-on. Keith mirrors him, only because he feels like he doesn’t really have a choice. 

“Okay,” Lance says. “Ready.” 

Keith sets the timer and fixes his eyes onto Lance’s. For about the first thirty seconds, it’s hard to keep a straight face—they blink a lot, Lance starts giggling wildly about ten times, and Keith can’t focus on anything except trying to keep his eyes attached to Lance’s. But by the one minute mark, the awkwardness has evaporated, and Keith is able—for better or for worse—to fully comprehend Lance’s startlingly blue gaze. 

Keith has faced a lot in his life. He’s faced the awful orphanage system, he’s faced ten sets of parents who seemed to hate him just for existing, he’s faced a life of isolation, and he’s faced the most evil genocidal dictator in the universe. One would think, with all the experience Keith has in facing things, that he’d be able to face this without a problem. 

But it is remarkably difficult—overwhelmingly so. 

Lance’s eyes are blue like the sky, or the clear water of the beaches—it reminds Keith strongly of Earth, and it’s a startling contrast to the unnatural, yellowish light surrounding them. He stares into them and feels like he’s flying and drowning at the same time. 

_ This is all because of Shiro,  _ he thinks distantly, wavering as Lance blurs and focuses and blurs again in front of him. He can’t think straight, can’t think past the bright blue facing him, can’t think past all he now feels and knows about Lance. It’s doing things with his head, with his rationale, this new and sudden emotional intimacy—he had no time to prepare, he hadn’t thought this would _work,_ he—

He needs to _get a damn hold of himself._ He tries to ignore the fact that he’s staring at _Lance’s_ eyes— _be objective, not_ sub _jective, Kogane—_ that its Lance’s face three centimetres from his own. He _has_ to forget that, or he just might lose it right here. 

Keith tries to pull himself out of the fog of emotions and—and, _temptation,_ he’ll go with that word. But it’s hard, it’s _so hard,_ because Lance is still staring at him, and Lance is just as reckless and impulsive as Keith is, and Lance doesn’t seem to care that they’re both falling, falling, falling, and eventually they’re going to hit the ground and it’ll be a fucking _mess._

_ This could ruin Voltron,  _ Keith thinks, dizzy, watching the light reflect off of Lance’s eyes in fascination. _Shiro just wanted us to get along. We could ruin everything if we make it more complicated._

Keith could turn away. He could break eye contact with Lance and say, “This is stupid and it’s clearly not working, let’s stop.” Lance would go along with him, Keith knows he would. Keith could still stop this, this, whatever _this_ is, and save them both from the disarray that they’ll leave in their wake. 

Keith doesn’t turn away. 

_ He’s turned on right now.  _ Keith swallows, and it’s audible through the deafening silence, and Lance’s breath catches as he hears it. _He wants to be bolder._ Lance is shaking, Keith can see it in his peripheral, the minute movements of Lance’s body. _He likes my eyes._

Lance _gasps,_ and a split second later his pupils have dilated—Keith nearly chokes in delirious attraction as he watches, utterly _captivated,_ as the black surges forward, sucking the blue away and leaving darkness in its place.

“Keith,” Lance says, and his voice is low, much lower than it usually is. 

”Shut up,” Keith replies, licking his lips. Lance closes his eyes longer than a blink would allow, and opens them again. They’re still dilated. ”I don’t know if we’re allowed to talk.” 

Lance shuts up, but Keith can _see_ the intensity in him, is facing it straight on, and he _knows_ what Lance is thinking because, god, he’s thinking the same thing. It feels like a waiting game of who’s going to act first. 

The alarm goes off. 

Keith gasps in a breath and gropes for the tablet, shutting down the incessant beeping with a tap and throwing it aside. He faces Lance again, who seems caught in the dangerous territory between acting and waiting.

Lance looks at him. His eyes are still dark.

“Fuck,” Keith says eloquently. Lance’s answering laugh is strangled, subdued.

He shifts closer to Keith. Keith’s heart is pounding—Keith is honestly afraid it’s going to fail on him, it’s going _that_ fast. His palms are sweating, he _knows_ he looks like a wreck, and the logical voice inside of him is screaming, _You haven’t slept in 21 hours what the fuck are you doing you actual idiot you’re going to fuck up everything and he’s going to hate you and the team’s going to hate you both and you need to STOP._

“Lance,” Keith says. Lance continues leaning forward.

“What.”

“This—This isn’t—“

“Is there a problem?” Lance is whispering now. Keith stays absolutely still. The tension in here is hotter than lava, hotter than _anything_ Keith has experienced until now, and he _needs_ to gather his bearings and bring this back under control.

He stays quiet.

Lance takes his cue, and suddenly he’s hovering in front of Keith, eyes still (still!) blown wide, and he presses his lips against Keith’s. It’s simple, but the innocence doesn’t last long.

Lance gives Keith an easy but slightly forceful nudge, and suddenly Keith feels his head hit the ground. He barely has time to think, _wait, when did that happen_ , before Lance is settling between his legs. Keith draws in his breath and Lance swallows it.

Tongue. Lance’s. Teeth—Keith is biting Lance’s lips. Lance moans in the back of his throat and heat coils in Keith’s belly. Oh, _Jesus._ He’d forgotten what really kissing someone felt like. God. He settles his hands on Lance’s hips—he thinks he might be gripping them a bit too hard, because Lance breaks the kiss for a split second to hiss into Keith’s neck—and Lance (helpfully? daringly? _irresponsibly_?) shifts to slot them together with Keith’s and— _yeah._ There’s that.

They’re both hard by now—it’s barely been five minutes since they actually touched, but Keith’s beginning to consider that fucking questionnaire as its own form of winded foreplay.

That idle thought brings him partially out of the lust-induced haze as he remembers what’s brought them here, and he’s suddenly fully aware of himself, what’s happening, and the very _real_ possibility of any of the paladins (or, god forbid, _Allura and Coran_ ) walking in on them.

He slackens his grip on Lance’s hips, pulling his lips from Lance’s. “Lance—“

Lance ignores him, shifting his attention to Keith’s neck instead. He mouths it, bites it, kisses it, and—Keith is going to have to make a very embarrassing trip to Hunk later to ask for some of his concealer.

Keith wriggles a little, immediately regretting it due to the sorely wanted friction it causes. That’s really not helping him keep his resolve to stop this. Lance even pauses his mangling of Keith’s neck to suck in a breath at the sensation.

“Lance, we need to—“

_“_ _ ¿Dejarías de interrumpir?” _ Lance bursts out, abandoning Keith’s neck to give him a hooded, albeit mildly annoyed, look.  “ _¡C_ _ állate!” _

“I have no idea what you just said but it was hot,” Keith says, and this time he doesn’t even berate himself for his lack of a filter. Lance offers him a seductive smirk in response, but Keith can see the preening look in his eyes. _Does he have a praise kink?_

“But that’s not important,” he continues on, ignoring his thoughts (which could easily capture him and run away with him). “We need to stop.” 

“Stop?” Lance looks confused, hurt even. He shifts uncomfortably between Keith’s legs, and Keith has to shut his eyes and imagine being hit in the face with one thousand snowballs. “Why?” 

“Because—Because they could walk in at _any_ minute! Do you want to get caught by them?” 

Lance shrugs, gaze travelling back over to the door with renewed interest. Keith blanches when he realises that the thought is _appealing,_ rather than mortifying, to Lance. 

“I’m not sure I would care. I mean—their fault for walking in,” Lance says, licking his lips. He’s still staring at the door. 

Keith gapes at him. “I am _not_ indulging in your exhibitionism kink!” he says, incredulous. Lance breaks his gaze back to Keith and laughs. 

“Aw, not even a little?” 

“No!” 

Lance groans, warily wrenching himself from his close proximity to Keith. “Fine, but you owe me when we get back to—“

“Lance! Keith!” 

And just like that, Lance and Keith are jumping away from each other as if electrocuted, swinging around to face the door as the handle jiggles. Lance hurriedly pats down his hair and shoves a pillow in his lap. Keith blusters, hitting his head on the table and cursing loudly. 

Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk enter just as Lance’s shriek of laughter fills the room. 

(The commotion is almost enough to make Keith forget that Lance had said he’d _owed_ him. Does that mean they’ll be doing this again?) 

“How’d it go? Did you survive?” Hunk says, striding into the room and grinning at them both. Keith’s skin heats up again. 

“Are you guys going to finally shut up and let me work now?” Pidge adds pointedly from their place in the doorway. 

“Um—yeah, I’d say we survived. It was really _hard,_ though,” Lance says, and Keith shoots him a death glare at the implications. He’s smiling cheekily. 

Keith turns back to find Shiro right in front of him. “So,” he says, clapping a hand on Keith’s shoulder, “it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, right? Do you think you’ve bonded?” 

Keith thinks back to the past hour or so, thinks about everything he’s learnt about Lance, from his bond with his family to the taste of his skin, and there’s no question in his mind that _something_ has broken through the walls they’d built around each other. Something that’s going to stay with them. He looks, just looks, at Lance, who’s gesturing dramatically to Hunk and Pidge, and finds that the bloom of warmth he’d been feeling is still there. Lance catches his eye, smiles. Keith dares to smile back. 

He turns back to Shiro. “You could say that.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> translations:  
>  _dios, esto me está matando_ : god, this is killing me  
>  _no digas mi nombre así_ : don't say my name like that  
>  _¿dejarías de interrumpir? ¡cállate!_ : will you stop interrupting? shut up! 
> 
> any incorrect translations are entirely the fault of [plisestkypng](http://archiveofourown.org/users/plisestkypng) as she translated them all for me (using mexican spanish, which is apparently somewhat different from other types of spanish. i just learnt this. knowledge is power?) 
> 
> edit: big thank you to [Fela_chan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fela_chan/pseuds/Fela_chan), who offered some tweaked translations! i appreciate it <3
> 
> i hope u enjoyed! kudos, comments, and criticism is always welcome


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